Monday, February 27, 2017

We're taking a Screenplay Writing course, just for fun.
Let's co-write this together.
The Wolbromski's.
Two women get into a conversation at the old water tower in Netanya, by the sea. Gorgeous vistas of the seaside town, the waves, red red poppies along the shore. Wind.
They form an intense and nurturing friendship, and very quickly discover that Talia's father and Miriam's grandfather were brothers. Brothers!
Unfolds a saga, of Aidl's children. Aidl in Staszow, Poland. Though on Nov. 8, 1942, ALL the Jews in Staszow were murdered,
Two of Aidl's children had fulfilled their crazy dream to build a homeland in Israel. (That very water tower in Netanya is where Aidl's daughter Golda began her Israel life, founding a fledgling kibbutz and rescuing Jews arriving by boats that were forbidden by the British from entering Israel)
One had come to make a life in Canada
One hid in the forests.f
And one, on that Nov. 8, 1942, went into hiding at the farm of a Christian family.
Together Talia and Miriam search for the missing children of Aidl, and reunite the family.
Scene by Scene
1. Seaside Netanya.
Miriam, 28, has come alone to Israel, and rented a beachside apartment to sketch and swim. She is vibrant, active, needed a retreat from her busy life in Canada. She is on a self-imposed silent retreat, to regroup after breaking up with a boyfriend. She wants to wash off all of her excesses, and be fit, centred, purified, ready to start anew. She is wearing a jogging suit, with a small Canadian flag on the  shirt.
Talia, 60, carries the heaviness of her past. Today is the anniversary of her mother's death. Talia's mother and father managed to survive the horrors of World War II, by hiding in the farm of a generous and courageous Christian family who kept them in a hidden room behind a false wall throughout the war.
Scene 1
Exterior a cliff overlooking the sand and the sea,  the vastness of sunshine and waves, and red poppies blooming in grasses along the cliff.
Windblown, Miriam walks along the cliff, stopping in silent pleasure over and over again, at flowers and at the sunny waves.
She arrives at an unusual stone structure, round and imposing, close to the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea.
Talia, an older woman, approaches from the opposite side of the structure.
Talia: Canada?
[beat]
Miriam almost begins to speak, then catches herself and remembers that she is on a silent retreat. She purses her lips, smiles all over, and
makes a humorous hand sign that she is not speaking.
Talia: What, my English is that rusty? You're not from here I know.
Miriam sees Talia looking at the flag on her shirt. She points to it and nods. Their eyes meet in sudden friendship.
Talia: You do speak English, don't you? I learned English when I was little. We had a Canadian aunt and uncle who used to visit us when I lived in Uruguay. It was funny. The uncle looked so much like my father, I used to run and sit on my uncle's lap by mistake. Then I would feel the candies in his shirt pocket and figure out that it was Uncle Volv from Canada. I would jump away so fast.
Miriam (forgetting her vow of silence). Ha. Volv. That was the name of my grandfather.
She laughs and claps her hand to her mouth.
Miriam: I'm trying to be on a silent retreat. Oh well.
Talia: Feh. Silence is for lonely people. Silence is for hiding. Silence is for not being found. Silence is for life and death. It's not silence you're looking for.
Miriam follows Talia's gaze to the strange round stone structure on the cliff over the sea.
Talia: See this? This is all we have from the spot where my other aunt and uncle first began their life here in Israel, back in the thirties.  It was a water tower. They built it when they first got here from Poland. They collected the winter rains here, and built a small Kibbutz, a shared farm.  A collective. They shared all the work jobs, the digging and the planting and the building and the defending.
My aunt Golda was in charge of Beauty.
[beat]
Miriam looks quizzically at Talia, a dawning of possibility.
Miriam: Your Aunt Golda? .............Where did they go when they left this place?
Talia: Ah. This little spot by the sea was beautiful, and from here they brought in many boats of people who were escaping the horrors in Poland and Germany.
 The water tower was a lookout, for spotting the boats of secret immigrants running away from the horrors in Poland and Germany. They would take a rowboat out in the dark of night, and secretly bring these scared and hungry people to shore. And they would give each one a basket of oranges from their newly blooming orchards, right here (Talia waves her hand at the surrounding orange trees).
Miriam: (Lauhing) This beats silence any day.
(She straightens, faces Talia with an open smile.)
I'm Miriam. My grandfather in Canada was Volv. His sister who came to Israel in the thirties was named Golda.
My aunt Golda lived in Kibbutz Yad Mordecai. And where did you Aunt Golda live?
(Talia narrows her eyes, then